A surprising name
Hsieh, an old acquaintance of Michael Sheu, overruled proposals of making dorayaki, honey cakes, or longan cakes by suggesting making pineapple cakes with local Baguashan pineapples, and to stand out from the crown by using indigenous pineapples.
Once they decided to pursue this road less traveled, everything, including naming, specs, fillings and packaging, had to depart from tradition. But this is easier said than done: there were numerous risks faced by taking this route.
The brand name SunnyHills was a bold experiment.
The SunnyHills name, conceived by Hsieh, has little to do with pineapple cakes. When he asked the founders what they thought, they responded that it was an unusual name; it just didn’t sit right. But they couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to reject it, and decided to bite the bullet and use it.
“The name has both feeling and image,” says Hsieh. His greatest impression upon first arriving in Baguashan had been how sunny this hilly area was. “Each evening, the country folk would move benches to the grain drying yards for dinner, the ground giving out the heat stored up from the day’s sunshine. The people living in these hills are also sunny and hospitable in character, unlike the exaggerated friendliness of urban salespeople. It’s a reserved geniality. Hence, SunnyHills.” These concrete and abstract feelings serendipitously inspired Hsieh to think up the SunnyHills brand name.
As for the indigenous pineapple cakes, they had to break from tradition in ingredients, dimensions and packaging.
Some have said: “If you don’t understand [Chanel] No. 5, you don’t understand perfume; if you don’t understand No. 2, you don’t understand pineapples.”
SunnyHills used the Kaiying No. 2 and 3 cultivars of indigenous pineapple “because they are tart and fruity,” says Lan Sha-chung. SunnyHills pineapple cakes are sweetened only with maltose, to adjust their sweetness to about 40 degrees Brix. As for the acidity, no additives are mixed with the raw materials, so the results vary seasonally. Therefore, the pineapple cakes are tarter in the winter and sweeter in the summer.
Lan Sha-chung reveals that to attain an excellent mouthfeel, he first ices down the crusts, making them harder. In the beginning he worked until his hands hurt, but now, thankfully, the process is semi-mechanized and much easier. Currently the company produces 50,000 pineapple cakes a day. But since no artificial flavorings, colors or preservatives are added, they have a shelf life of just 15 days; thus they ship them the day they are made, to maintain freshness.
“When it comes to pineapple cakes, fresher doesn’t mean better,” says food industry old hand Lan Sha-chung: their texture is at its moistest after three days.
Unlike the four-centimeter-long, 35-gram standard of most pineapple cakes on the market, SunnyHills pineapple cakes are significantly different at 6 × 3 × 2.5 cm and 50 g. Today these dimensions have become something of a standard for cakes made of indigenous pineapples. What most don’t realize is that Michael Sheu came up with this tradition-breaking form from a pack of cigarettes.
“Men, after all, are unrefined, not thinking about bite sizes or cost issues,” laughs consultant Andre Hsieh.
In their own sanheyuan courtyard homestead on Nantou’s Baguashan, four farm boys used the abundant pineapples of their local area to create a legend in Taiwanese agricultural enterprise.